Rakushinpu Monogatari: The Inu's Entwining Bride
by lyrainthedark
Summary: It starts in the rain, blue eyes beneath a red umbrella. It ends with the wish that began it all; with memory, with the mad macabre. For Dokuga Contest's Child Play Challenge. Warning: Blood, gore, demonic enticement, dismemberment, sexual themes. Now COMPLETE.
1. The Hunted

**_Rakushinpu Monogatari: The Inu's Entwining Bride_  
**

**I.**

_The Hunted_

He begins to see her everywhere, but only in the rain.

On market days, on festivals, on quiet afternoons otherwise unremarkable.

She carries a paper umbrella, red-lacquered and gilded, held over her head by thin, pale hands on thin, pale wood. At first, he barely notices her presence – her scent does not reach him through the crowds, her figure is hidden in shapeless robes, her face is always turned away from him.

There comes a day when he realizes he has noticed all these things, and that day he unwraps his predator nature and loosens the inner control.

He stalks her as she makes her way from one stall to another in the overflowing market, tracks her with his eyes, walks close behind her and finally tastes her scent beneath the odors of food vendors and unwashed human flesh.

_Musk. Lightning. Cinnamon._

For the first time he catches a glimpse of her face behind a swinging curtain of thick black hair. The curve of her cheek is lovely but it is her eyes that catch and hold him as she turns; her eyes, startling sapphire, brilliant and blue and captivating.

She seems to him like a rare wine, meant for a connoisseurs collection, meant for precious, careful tasting. He pities her, with her striking beauty, her eyes glowing against dark skin with the radiance of a precious gem.

He pities her, for she has attracted his attention and now her life is short.

He watches her walk through the rain, and he does not question how easily he follows her, how quickly he has been consumed. As closely as he observes, he sees only her back, the straight set of her shoulders and the long black flow of her hair, the curve of the fingers on her right hand around the pole of her umbrella, the back of her left hand where it holds her skirts up out of the mud.

He does not see the glitter of the eyes he thinks so beautiful, the shadow behind them, the _awareness_ that tenses their corners. He does not see the curve of her lips, the flicker of her tongue out to touch them, the flare of something _other_ in her face.

Despite her untouched beauty, despite the warmth of her skin -

If he could see he would know that he, even he is walking into a certain kind of danger.

But he cannot; he will not.

It will be too late when he realizes that _he_ is the hunted one; that he is prey. That for the first time since he was a tiny pup, hungry eyes have been locked upon him, stalking him. His own confidence, his infallible power, the skills of war that have never failed him – they are his enemy now, knives in the dark that will haunt him...

But now, he knows nothing, and follows her scent, her swaying – her low, singing voice.

"_Rain, rain, go away...come again another day..."_

* * *

Challenge Prompt: Rain, rain, go away

Word Count: 500

A/N: For Dokuga_Contest's Child Play Challenge. Heh. Yes, I did this to nursery rhymes. What's *this*, you ask? Well...you'll just have to wait and see, won't you? I dedicate this fic to my amazing Numbah One, who has reappeared, this Challenge in hand. GO LILLI GO, WITH YOUR AWESOME AND YOUR...AWESOME!

One chapter a day, til the fic is done. Until tomorrow,

Please Review!


	2. Who Watches The Watcher

**_Rakushinpu Monogatari: The Inu's Entwining Bride_  
**

**II.**

_Who Watches The Watcher..._

She knows him the moment she sees him, recognizes the smoothness of his features, the tall, straight back – the long, shining hair, the garments, unchanged, the swords heavy at his side, their power strong in her memory. A part of her wonders, idly, if he comes here often; another part wonders why he is here at all.

Among humans; among the unwashed masses that she knows from personal experience he has always despised. She taps one finger against red, red lips, contemplates him. She has no plans for this encounter, no designs to fulfill – personal honesty long ago forced her to acknowledge that it was unlikely she would ever see him again.

_Too much has changed._

The next time, she is more prepared, and without her own prey. She stalks him watchfully, does not move much, merely turns her eyes in his direction, no matter where he might be. She thinks that some part of him has noticed her; she tingles with the sensation of his regard.

When he leaves, she follows him; she tracks him to his home, slips out of sight when that faint _tingle _intensifies into anything more than a breath of suspicion -

And still, when the rain is heavy and the sky is dark, she ventures out into the open, crosses his gaze but never close enough for him to touch, taunts him with promise but not the truth and depth of her scent. She wears red, always red, and carries a lacquered umbrella to hide her face. She taunts him, teases him; she plays with him, adds fuel to the fire within her – the fire that has been burning for such a very long time.

On windy nights she stands at his feet while he dozes and whispers his name into the wind, lets her voice caress his thoughts, his dreams.

Without ever knowing she is near, he falls under her spell. Without being aware of her presence, without knowing her name, he belongs to her. The power passes over him with only one purpose, layer upon layer, faint as mist and strong as steel.

She smiles at the ease with which her web enshrouds him, stares hungrily at his sleeping features, at the curve of his lip, the line of his throat, the dip and angle of his collarbone. She leans forward, until she is millimeters away from pressing her vicious lips to his mouth – and then she staggers back, and vanishes.

She spends the night awake, licking her hunger from her lips, thinking, thinking...

_He smells...divine. Such power; such blood. Divine._

The next day, it is raining, and she makes her way to the village under the shelter of her umbrella. She feels his eyes on her, heavy, and she wonders if it is the completion of the weaving she has laid across his soul that compels him, finally- or perhaps his own longing?

Her heart beats faster. She moves close to him, tantalizes with the rising odor of her body. She is aroused just being close to him; she feels his power flicker, _youki_ dancing away from him in waves and crackling across her skin like lightning. She shivers, smiles, shows her face to him – her eyes, the startling color of them, which has ensnared many a male.

When she walks away he is following her, stalking her – _hunting her – _her smile broadens, deepens. Hunger sharpens within her; she feels venom slicking her veins.

_Poor Inu-chibi. I can feel you laughing, little dog; but I wonder – for how long?_

She walks on.

* * *

Challenge Prompt: Hey diddle diddle...

Word Count: 600

A/N: Chapter two, as promised...more tomorrow, so

Please Review!


	3. Hollow Pursuits

**_Rakushinpu Monogatari: The Inu's Entwining Bride_  
**

**III.**

_Hollow Pursuits_

Sesshomaru follows the woman and her red umbrella to the edge of the village and then past it. It is more difficult to hide his presence as she slips onto the road and continues down it at the same slow, steady pace. Though he could follow the trail of her scent and find her wherever she hides now that he _knows _it -

He is compelled to keep her within his vision; his eyes taste her loveliness, hips and swaying steps, pale fingers and long, dark hair. She is still humming, the same little song to which he has heard only a single line of verse. It lulls him – the sound is soft, somnolent, so sweet a sorceress could not sing more of an enchantment.

But there is no magic in the music; he can feel no power, sense nothing but a woman, drawing him onward with lusciousness, ever lovely, feeding every lascivious thought his brain can devise. She is so oblivious; if she but turns, she will _see_ him, for there is no cover along this road and no hiding place. If it comes to a chase – ahh...how sweet, for its few, darting moments.

_That is not what I want. _

What he wants is all the dimensions of lust, all the fleshly pleasures, to feed his senses.

The sight of her, as he he sees her now, and the finer view of her unencumbered skin – the scent of her, desires, needs, essences.

Touch, of the curves of her body, of the depths of her, of the flushed ripeness of her skin – and within her, the secret opening of her body, the heat of her mouth, her tongue like wet silk -

Sounds...yes, sounds she will give him, sounds of submission and sounds uncontrollable, the hard slap of bodies, the harsher panting of breath, and...

The screams.

_How I will cherish the screams._

Taste. Blood, iron, copper, salt – rich. And her flesh; how sweet it will taste, lean and firm with the heady odors of pain and lust to enrich the flavor. He will start with her legs, with those long, soft limbs; the marbled flesh of the thigh, the dark, savory fibers of her calf.

His thoughts sustain him; quickly, and more quickly the further they get from the village, she goes before him – into the forest, and further, into a thick grove of bamboos. Within – a surprise.

_A house. She lives here alone?_

He hears a waterfall, a whisper of wild silences, the wind in the trees. There is no human scent in this place but the woman's and that is faint; it feels...quiet here, though they are not far into the wood.

When he hears the woman's voice, breaking that silence – it pulls him forward as if on a string. Her words are nonsense, and he does not understand; he merely watches, through the half-open door, and listens.

"_Kagome, Kagome, kago no naka no tori wa..._"

* * *

Challenge Prompt: Duck, Duck, Goose

Word Count: 500

A/N: Bit of explanation here; the prompt is "duck duck goose", and the line at the end of the fic is from the song that Kagome gets her name from - a song that goes along with the Japanese "version" of the duck duck goose game. I would post translations for the song, but it's mostly nonsense words and there are many different versions and translations - so I suggest the wiki for "Kagome, Kagome" to interested parties. More tomorrow, so

Please Review!


	4. My Sweet Prince

**_Rakushinpu Monogatari: The Inu's Entwining Bride_  
**

**IV.**

_My Sweet Prince_

She sings the song because she wants him to remember; because she wants him to have her name on his mind. She will not tell him her story - not the history he will know and remember, because it is shared between them; not what came after, the terrors and the agonies and the joys that belong to her alone.

She is trying to think of him as merely prey; she wants to believe it, but she knows it is not true.

_I love you. _

_I have always loved you_.

She puts away her umbrella, and takes off her topmost layer of robes. She undoes the coil that holds half her hair at the back of her head, lays the pins aside one by one and strokes them, gently examines the wide-eyed gems that adorn the top of each slip of jade. She smiles as she puts them away; _gold tomorrow_, she thinks, and presses her hands against her heart, feels the throb there, licks her lips.

Is it time? Is she ready?

_So long, I waited..._

His presence is dark to her, and bright; dark in presence, bright in power, in intensity – before she takes him completely, before he is utterly consumed she will have that power, will taste its deepest nectar. Slowly, she licks her lips, and then walks outside.

As she knows he will, Sesshomaru gives himself away. It is merely the cracking of a twig under a soft-booted foot, but in the silence of that place it echoes like the snap of living bone. She paints fear on her face, turns to face the sound and presses her back up against the door she has just passed through.

She cannot give terror to her scent; she sparkles for him, awe and desire. As he comes close to her, as his soft, swift steps close the distance remaining between them, she senses confusion, growing until it claims him entirely.

When he is two steps away he pauses, stares at her, lets her features come to rest in his memory and finds that it is an overlay there; that he has seen her face before. One more step, and the question on his tongue evolves as he takes it; comes out twisted from its original form, loses all certainty.

"Are you...a miko, woman?"

"I am miko – but I know you, Inu-chibi."

His eyes flare red at the insult; red as her robe, red as her umbrella. He lunges toward her, a movement of strength condensed and focused.

And then he is hanging in mid-air. Around him, wrapped over him, tied tight and lovingly to him, is spidersilk.

His head jerks to the sound of her voice, and then, finally, he recognizes what has moved him.

_Compulsion!_

"I didn't dare to hope that you would remember, that you would come to me."

"I do **not** -"

"It does not matter. You are mine now, Inu-chibi. Mmm..."

She walks around him, peruses him; he feels her gaze on him, prying, weighted, greedy. She is nothing like the woman in his memory – only her face, and, faintly, something in the layers of her strange, sharp scent.

She comes back to stand in front of him, looks up and sees him staring down at her with that piercing golden stare, and smiles.

"So beautiful. So _beautiful_."

In that moment, all other paths dissolve. For Sesshomaru, there is no going back – no retreat, no past, one future.

And then her fingers reach forward and pluck his left eye from its socket.

"_Peek-a-boo._"

Challenge Prompt: Peek-a-boo

Word Count: 600

A/N: Well, now. Poor puppy, poor puppy...but there is no avoiding the future, for it is already written and will come to pass...since I say so. Next chapter tomorrow, so let me know what you think of this turn of events, and

Please Review!


	5. Angel One

**_Rakushinpu Monogatari: The Inu's Entwining Bride_  
**

**V.**

_Angel One_

His eye comes whole into her hand. Sesshomaru sees the world tip by at a deranged angle in the midst of red agony, and roars. There is a sickening sound; in anguish he watches the thread that binds his sight to his flesh pull, and tear – something wet and horrible flaps back against his face, and he feels the warm flow, blood welling, overflowing, spilling down his cheek.

The sight, the smell, is too much for her to resist. She coos over the glistening orb in her palm, and then steps forward and _up_, smiles at him from the insubstantial silk of the web that binds him. She is _so close_ that he cannot stand it; with all his considerable might, he struggles, but this is a trap made especially for him.

She leans forward, and drags her tongue from jawline to temple, testing, tasting...

Salt, and steel; power, and pain.

_Bittersweet._

_Perfect_.

Lovingly, tenderly, ignoring the snap of sharp fangs near her fingers, she strokes his other cheek.

"Don't worry, my love. The pain is for your sake; I promise, it will get better."

They are words she has repeated a thousand times; she will repeat them again, but this-and-only-this time, she means them. It does not matter. Words cannot dissipate his agony or reduce his panic when suddenly, easily, she reaches out again, smiling at him, and takes his right eye.

It is the last thing he sees – that smile. And then he feels something warm covering his empty sockets, breathes a scent, her scent, and finds it a thousand times stronger than before, hears her whisper and, hearing, falls deep into sleep.

"_Dream, now. Dream. This life is nothing but a dream; and in the dream, we are free..._"

While he sleeps, she bandages his eyes, smooths his hair, disrobes him and lays him on a futon thickly covered with furs.

She sits at his feet and stares, and stares, and now that she is alone with him, and she has captured him, and she has claimed her first prize, her first taste -

She lays her head down on the table and weeps.

In her hand she holds his precious eyes.

_A second chance, a second chance for him...a third for me. This one is mine forever. This one I'll love, but not to death._

_This time, I'll..._

Enchant. Persuade. Seduce. Dissemble. Captivate. Ensnare.

_Be complete. Forever?_

Perhaps. Maybe.

She knows even as she is thinking it that this dream will never come to be. One taste, one taste...that is enough to tell her this, enough that she knows she will never be free of the hunger again.

_Oh Inuyasha -_

Blood. The walls – the ceiling. Outside the door. Silver stained forever red, everything red...red endless as the sky.

She sits up straight and turns her eyes to her captive.

"You'll be different, won't you?"

_Deliver me._

"You'll be strong enough to love me?"

_From this silence, deliver me._

Challenge Prompt: Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Word Count: 500

A/N: Sesshomaru says good bye to the light; Kagome says hello to her own tragedy, her own torment...the past not yet revealed in full but coming soon...perhaps tomorrow, with the next chapter. You never know, so

Please Review!


	6. Devil's Due

**_Rakushinpu Monogatari: The Inu's Entwining Bride_  
**

**VI.**

_Devil's Due_

He wakes to darkness and to pain, feels warmth still pressed over his eyes and remembers that even if the cover were lifted, he would not see.

_I do not have daylight. I have neither the moon, nor stars. I will not see my reflection, or the face of my enemy, or the last, darkest spurt of blood when a life flies free. Will my life end here, now? Will I forget my own face, the colors of the world, the look of my father on the night he died, the orange of Rin's yukata and the brown of her eyes?_

The questions crowd him; the silent space in his mind where vision should be is black, empty, and around it his other senses clamor at him for attention – his skin, tingling now with power...so thick, swathes of it, binding him, wrapped around him, cocooning him. He feels the individual strands, fine and light as a moth's wing beating against him as he shivers in his restraints, muscles twitching with rage.

All his pride, all his power, centuries of training to create ultimate skill and she..._she_...

_Who is she?_

He remembers a woman, walking by the side of his brother; his mate...a human.

_Human. This creature is not human...but...her face..._

It is the same. Her scent...even sightless, deep in memory, he cannot remember her scent; something soft, something faint and clean. Not -

_Cinnamon. Heavy; sharp. Lightning – the smell that comes with rain._

The scents are moving toward him, and the closer she comes the freer his movements feel, until her hand is against his cheek, stroking tenderly beneath the bandage; he jerks his head aside, and hears her laughter, and then her voice, faint, as stroking as her hands.

"Inu-chibi, be careful. You will heal no more quickly than a mortal wrapped in my web – ahh..."

His power flares bright, and brighter; even blind he is more than a match for her, if only he can get free, but he hears no sounds of surprise, or fear, no awe or terror from her – no, only the musk of her scent, strengthening, full of arousal now.

And he hears her moans, low at first, and then richer. Her voice is husky, strong, dark; as she speaks his memory is overcome with the memory of her smile, the look of satisfaction in those blue eyes as she reached out and took his sight.

His stomach clenches; he feels an echo of agony in his hollow sockets and groans -

And then a scent, weaving around him, overcoming everything else, distracting him even from the feeling of her hands on his face, on his shoulders, on his clothes, disrobing him. With the scent comes wetness, on his face, on his mouth; instinctively, he licks his lips, and oh – but the taste of her is everything that he dreamed.

It is her blood and it bewitches him, ensnares him; it bears all the promise of her scent and something more.

_So pure_.

And then he knows that somehow – somehow _it_ is true.

"You are _that miko_! You are _Kagome, _Inuyasha's woman._"_

The dripping sensation disappears; the weight of her leaves his body, and then he hears a low and angry hiss.

"What did you say, Inu-chibi?"

The soft, seductive odor is overcome by hot iron, by waves of energy he can feel pulsing from her, rising up and reaching out to him, slipping between the threads of the web that holds him and biting at his skin.

He cannot see the expression on her face.

The guilt and the horror.

The pain and the rage.

Challenge Prompt: Twinkle, twinkle...

Word Count: 600

A/N: Darkness, and what waits to infiltrate the spaces where the light has lurked. Darkness, and its echoes in faces where it does not belong. Is there hope for Sesshomaru? For Kagome? Who is more broken, after all? Perhaps tomorrow will tell, so

Please Review!


	7. Cause and Effect

**_Rakushinpu Monogatari: The Inu's Entwining Bride_  
**

**VII.**

_Cause and Effect_

She would do anything to erase the knowledge she now knows he possesses. What was it that alerted him? How does he remember? How muchdoes he know?

_Did he see my shame? Does he know...what I did?_

The memory; endless red. One cry of horror echoes in her ears: "_What did you do -what did you do with my Kagome!_" Her own foolishness, the years that were not enough, the call of selfish power sleepless around her neck – the curse she had stepped into with a single mistake.

"_Make me youkai; it is my wish!"_

And ever since, an agony of regret.

_How does he know? How dare he speak of it!_

He _knows_ only her name and her relationship with his brother. He does not know that she looked at him and saw his brother in his eyes; that she feeds the lusts of flesh and the hunger of her body, and hates and hates and hates – herself, and the lover who was not strong enough, and the jewel that began it all.

Days pass, and he knows only the sound of her heaving breath, the murmur of laughter in it, the pain that such laughter promises; knows only the taste of her blood on his lips, the unbearable sweetness of it, the purity that even the curse of her existence cannot hide completely.

But what he knows...she does not. Even the thought of him possessing her most sacred secret is a torment. She looks at him, at the lean lines of his body, at the blood, his blood, still painting his cheeks, at _her _blood on his lips, and the compulsive movement of his tongue, rosy, licking them, darting out to lick around them – around, and around, and around -

She can hear his growl, a low hum that rides the air between them, and panic retreats; the hunger returns, and a wicked thought comes with it. She steps forward softly, swiftly, and leans forward, presses her lips against his mouth. For a moment, she shivers in delight as his tongue sweeps over her lips, and then retreats. Teasing him, _taunting_ him, she bites her own lip and lets the thick blood rise to the surface.

_Drip._

Again, that flicker of tongue.

_Drip._

And again -

_Drip_.

This time she leans forward, and if he does not welcome her kiss, he welcomes the heat of her blood and the new sensation that it brings him, the distraction from his loss. He thinks, _will her smile haunt me forever?_

He remembers her as she was; though he does not _know_, he begins to understand.

_Woman. Miko of the shikon jewel, what wish did you make? What terror have you wrought?_

He does not give her the satisfaction of screaming when her sharp fangs bite down on his tongue, cleaving it in two. He hears the soft, wet, _smack_ of the part of him she has taken as she throws it to the floor.

Challenge Prompt: Ring around the rosie...

Word Count: 500

A/N: Seven out of nine...only two chapters left. Now that sight and taste and speech have all been taken from him, what is next? What is worse? You'll see...tomorrow.

Please Review!


	8. The Girl Who Was Death

**_Rakushinpu Monogatari: The Inu's Entwining Bride_  
**

**VIII**

_The Girl Who Was Death_

"You should not have said those things, Inu-chibi. You should not have recognized me – but this isn't punishment. Punishment is for those we hate, and I love you, Inu-chibi. I love you forever, and now you won't make that mistake again."

For the first time in his life he says nothing, and it is not by his own choice. And then – her whisper, sweetness he cannot deny - sweetness like poison. He falls deeply asleep, and while he sleeps she frees him from her power, from everything but the compulsion he will _never_ be able to escape.

While he sleeps, she stands over him and stares, wipes blood from his skin, takes the bandages from his eyes and watches the swift regeneration of damaged tissues. His eyes will take years, perhaps decades to return to him; the wound of his tongue is nearly healed, the lost portion reforming slowly under her gaze.

"It would not do to let you lose too much, Inu-chibi."

There is no need for it now, but she wraps silk around his his eyes, white and soft and lovely; careful in her movements but swift, she bathes him with warm water and then cocoons him once more in power. Her eyes stroke his body, and then her hands, which cannot resist the lure of the smooth, white expanse of his skin, paler than any man but still pulsing with life, ripe, tempting...

He cannot see her now; she thinks herself safe from exposure, and so she _changes_, becomes the grotesque figure that once-and-only-once greeted Inuyasha at his door.

A demon with a familiar face; sparkling terror and sparkling tears.

_Not this time, not again...you will love me, Inu-chibi_.

With six long, slender arms, she reaches out; with six pale, soft hands she strokes Sesshomaru's skin, feels dense muscle ripple under her caress, touches his cheeks, his chest, the length of his legs, the deadly and elegant claws, flaccid maleness that hardens in her hands.

Her purpose and the pleasure wake him, and he coughs, sends a mist of blood into the air. He hears her moan in delight, feels her hands take new liberties with his desiring flesh. Her intentions open for him then – what she wants, her true desires.

She leans over him and sips from what remains of the crimson well between his lips, delicate as a hummingbird. Her kiss is cool and caressing over his mouth, soft as the scent of pain; he remembers her words, and knows that she spoke the truth.

_I love you._

He can taste her nature in the air; he knows finally what she is and he can guess how she came to be this way.

_But strong...stronger than any of her kind I have ever heard of._

_Rakushinpu._

_Jorogumo. _

In love with her prey, half-horrified of her own nature; the weeping Spider, a hunter of strong and beautiful men. But this _un_woman...

_She was always fascinated with the lovely darkness._

She distracts him from his thoughts with the sudden heat of her body as she sinks down onto his erection; the sensation drags a groan from him and he scents the doubling and trebling of her arousal.

_Yes. She loves me. She wants me...but if I am not careful, she will destroy me._

Even as the thought runs through him, he feels two of those caressing hands become sharp and deadly; he feels the pain, accent to the pleasure now, nothing like what she has done to him before. Shallow cuts, which bleed freely across his skin; which he knows read _Kagome_.

Challenge Prompt: Pat-a-Cake

Word Count: 600

A/N: Hmm hmm...and a bit of explication - the "patty cake song" includes reference to "mark it with a B" or with the initial of the singer o the song, to "put it in the oven for you and me". And so at the end of this chapter, Kagome is carving the characters of her name into Sesshomaru's chest - "marking" him for her own. One more chapter left, my dears, so I will see you tomorrow, and

Please Review!


	9. Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

**_Rakushinpu Monogatari: The Inu's Entwining Bride_  
**

**IX.**

_Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling_

It is dusk, and Sesshomaru is so deeply asleep that Kagome binds him with no power as she leaves him but that deepest compulsion, the one he will never throw off.

_Don't leave me, Inu-chibi...don't hurt me...don't leave me._

He wakes to silence; no humming, no footsteps, no breath sound or heartbeat.

_She is gone. Hunting?_

He moves what has been the stub of his tongue against his teeth, and feels it full in his mouth – an odd sensation now but one that pleases him.

_Already healed. How long have I been unbound...?_

That _truth_ imprints itself on his consciousness, and then he is crouching, wary, testing scents and sounds.

He moves with caution, but there is something calling to him, pulling at him – his own youki, faint but relentless. Carefully, he searches; his fingers alight on a surface of smooth, soft metal – _gold_, he thinks. He recognizes the shape of a lady's hairpin, and then ornament on top; strange...soft...

_My eye!_

He recoils only momentarily, and then tears the bandage from his face. With one hand, he reaches up and into the empty socket of his right eye.

It takes all his will not to scream as his claws rupture the sensitive flesh.

Quickly, he strips his eye from the gold that binds it to the pin, tilts his head back and drops it into the socket. For a moment, there is nothing, only the pain of the new scratches – and then an intense itching, the healing reaching out to the old, worse wound. He sits on the floor with the second pin in his hand, and repeats the process...and waits.

It is an hour before light penetrates his starved consciousness, but then the healing moves quickly, nerves darting together, sealing the severed threads of his sight. When the world resolves itself into faint shadows, he sits in a chair by the table and stares at the door.

When she returns, he sees her _other_ shape for the first time. Her reaction is not what he expects; she sees him staring back at her...and screams. It is an ear-splitting note sustained beyond anything human; she hides her face and as much of her body as she can behind pale arms.

He has not been looking at her since she dropped what she was carrying – three bags full of eyes spilled over and spinning wildly across the floor.

His first instinct was to find her, to kill her - but now that she is here in front of him he knows that he cannot do this. He stands, and comes close to her; draws her out of herself, stares into those wide, blue eyes.

"_You_ cannot subdue _me_. _You_ cannot bind _me_."

He holds out a hand to her.

"_I_ will take _you_, _Rakushinpu_. _I _will take _you._"

She begs him, _love me, love me._

She hides her face and _smiles_.

He will never escape her now.

He will never even want to.

Challenge Prompt: Baa-Baa Black Sheep

Word Count: 500

A/N: And here we are at the end...sufficiently satisfying I hope, with enough implication for everyone XD This prompt came out of the song, obviously: "Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full." Not with wool, of course, because...well, what Japan lacks in sheep it apparently makes up for in spider youkai. As far as I know, the end of this fic and the end of this odd little AUniverse of Evil Kagome the Jorogumo and Sesshomaru The Unknowingly Doomed. Unless of course the universe smacks me in the face with a plunnie; you never know, you never know - anyway, thanks for reading, and as always, I greatly appreciate if you

Please Review!


End file.
